In West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Assam and Puducherry that will face Assembly elections in 2016, the Bharatiya Janata Party is relatively weak, but the political configuration in these States (and a Union Territory) will not make it any easier for the party’s chief national opposition, the Congress, to take advantage of the situation. The Congress senses that the road to its revival at the Centre passes through these States’ alleyways where regional forces dominate, except in Assam. In Tamil Nadu, the Congress has resurrected its tried-and-tested alliance with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam to consolidate votes in the State’s multi-party electoral landscape. Even so, for the Congress it will be a tough task to sell this alliance as a better alternative to the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, as public memory of the United Progressive Alliance is still relatively fresh. The Congress’s other alternative was to throw its weight behind a third front, but the party has long forsaken any ambition to lead a non-Dravidian alliance. Its weak presence is a consequence of its long-term decline in Tamil Nadu, despite the hold in the popular imagination of “Kamaraj rule”, the party’s halcyon days some 50 years ago. In any case, its claim to the Kamaraj legacy is now under dispute following the revival of the Tamil Maanila Congress. Whether the Congress’s aspiration for short-term gains will materialise depends less upon political arithmetic and more on the public appraisal of the ruling AIADMK. And with the opposition space still being inchoate, the outcome is difficult to forecast.
In Kerala and West Bengal, the Congress is caught in a bind. The wilful adoption of a subsidiary role to Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress enfeebled the Congress over time, and explains its State leadership’s desperation now to ally with its long-term nemesis, the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front. But just as the CPI(M)’s central leadership is divided over the question of an alliance — its West Bengal unit is in favour of a tie-up even as the central leadership remains undecided — the Congress high command faces a Hobson’s choice. An alliance with the Left Front would enable a viable contest against the Trinamool Congress and thus a better harvest of seats in West Bengal — but this may help the BJP gain a foothold in Kerala where the Congress-led front and the opposition CPI(M)-led front are the main contestants, and are at loggerheads. For the Congress leadership, leaving the political choice of alliance-building to its federal units based on local expediency is an easier option. This is unlike the Left Front, which cannot take a political decision without answering ideological questions on a tie-up with the Congress and what this would mean for its chances in Kerala, where it would hope to gain from anti-incumbency against the Congress. In Assam, the Congress’s choices are less stark but its challenges — the burden of anti-incumbency and a communally polarised build-up — are strong. The party has its task cut out.